Campaign benefits stay close to home

Small beginnings can achieve powerful results, says United Way
supporter Rick Hansen

by Bruce Mason staff writer

As you pause to decide whether or not to support UBC's United Way
campaign, organizers ask you to consider that locally 600,000 individuals
benefit from donations.

In the Lower Mainland, one in eight people aged 15 to 64 is limited
by a long-term physical condition, mental condition or health problems.
One in seven families is headed by a single parent. Sixty per cent
of female lone parents live in poverty and of the one in eight people
aged 65 or older, 30 per cent live alone.

Rick Hansen -- the president of the Rick Hansen Institute at UBC -- knows
firsthand how to make a difference.

"By working together, from a small beginning, we can achieve powerful
results," he says. "During my 1985-87 Man in Motion Tour, as I travelled
around the world in a wheelchair, millions of small donations were
made which amounted to an incredible $24-million legacy."

Since that time, the institute has been formed with a mission
to accelerate the cure for spinal cord paralysis. Today, through
the generosity of donors, including United Way donations and income
from endowments, Hansen's efforts have resulted in awards of $37.6
million to spinal cord injury research.

"This is a direct result of teamwork," says Hansen. "It was the
strength of my world tour and it's the strength of the United Way."

Recently the Rick Hansen Institute partnered with UBC to create
more than $5 million in endowments, the income from which supports
research for a cure through the Faculty of Science and Collaboration
on Repair Discoveries (CORD). Operating grants and fellowship and
student trainee awards have been granted to expand spinal cord injury
research directed toward a cure. Neurotrauma research grants have
been awarded to the Brain Research Centre and UBC's departments
of Health Care and Epidemiology and Orthopedics.

"When a cure for spinal cord injury is found the impact of the
original dollars donated to the Man in Motion Tour will have produced
a global benefit," says Hansen. "We believe the best is yet to come
and that greatness can be achieved when individuals from across
our community come together in a common endeavour such as the United
Way."

"From the funding of family and children's services and early prevention
of premature labeling and school failure, to fighting poverty, abuse
and discrimination, United Way funding makes a profound impact on
our community's future, including the university's potential students,"
says Bill McMichael, chair of UBC's United Way campaign.

Those who wish to direct donations to any of the United Way's agencies
and community projects, a registered Canadian charity, or UBCprograms such as the Rick Hansen Institute can do so by specifying
the beneficiary of their choice on the pledge forms.

For more information on UBC's United Way campaign -- including pledge
forms -- visit www.unitedway.ubc.ca or call 604-822-8929.

Correction

The cost of a ticket for the United Way raffle is $5. The amount
given in the Oct. 5 issue of UBC Reports was incorrect.